India's H1 B Visa concern in the era of Donald Trump: Pros and cons in 10 points each

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Flipboard
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
H1 B Visa and Donald Trump
H1 B Visa and Donald Trump

Los Angeles : Most Indians are in fear as the Donald Trump administration is preparing an executive order in order to make stringent rules for awarding H1-B visa to foreign workers. 

Also, the introduction of a new legislation in the US House of Representatives has doubled the worry as it proposes to double the minimum salary of the H-1B holders, thus making it difficult for Indian companies to send workers to the US.

For all those who are still guessing, H-1B is a temporary visa issued by the United States to foreign workers under the Immigration and Nationality Act allowing them to employ foreign workers in high-skilled jobs thus making it a non-immigrant visa. The minimum an employee in gets in such a position is $60,000. But with the new act is it comes into process, will make the minimum salary of H-1B visa holder to be at $1,30000 per annum.

Many Indian IT companies send coders and engineers to the US to work for clients and hire them at low costs but with the stringent new Visa rules they will now have to shell out more to send Indian recruits for on-site projects.

Let us take a look at the 10 concerns if a bill becomes a legislation in this regard:

1. The US gives 65,000 H-1B visas each year and an additional 20,000 more for foreign students in US.

2. Nearly 70 per cent of the 65,000 H-1B visas in 2014 went to Indians.

3. About 3 lakh to 3.5 lakh Indian engineers are on H-1B visas in US.

4. In 2016, till August, Indian workers had got 72 per cent of total H-1B visas issued worldwide.

5. During the same period, Indian workers also received 30 per cent of all L1 visas.

6. The big advantages of L1 is that there is no cap on the number to be issued every year.

7. According to the proposed order, firms would have to try to hire American first. If they recruit foreign workers, priority would be given to the most highly paid.

8. The move, if it goes through, could change the way US tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon and Apple hire talent.

9. It would also force wholesale changes at Indian companies such as Infosys and Wipro.

10. A bill in the US House of Representatives+ calls for the minimum salary for an H-1B visa to be doubled, to around $130,000 per annum from the present $60,000.

However, we also wonder what will happen if the bill becomes a legislation what will happen to all Indians who will return to their homeland.

1. If all Indian immigrants in the US sell their assets, and bring all the money to India it will have a direct impact on India's economy. 

2. A sudden spike in investments would be witnessed.

3. The economy will grow (and inflation at the same time) by crazy percentages. 

4. Local industries might suffer a bit, but would eventually cope up. 

5. Talking about unemployment, the investments would create more jobs than the number of reverse migrants.

6. We can also hope that Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle will open their offices in India.

Remember this.. Once a reporter asked Bill Gates this one.

Reporter: What will you do if the United States orders to send all Indians back to India?

Bill : I'll switch Microsoft Corp to India and I'll settle there.

7. Since most of the non resident Indians are well qualified, and will only bring their experiance and expertise to India. This will generate more employment and also increase GDP.

8. Demographically India will become more important.

9. Because the NRIs are mostly wealthy they will help increase the internal consumption of commodities thereby increasing production. Factory output will increase.

10. Because of increased production and consumption the state will net hIgher taxes which help in takingup development projects in the counyry. It bill be a cyclic reaction of the economy.